Question Dead Motherboard?

[joshuaqueen]

Hey all, thanks in advance for any attempts at helping...

I had some very annoying issues with my last PC so I upgraded to 9th gen i5 (I think 9600k?). It's been running great so long I forgot which CPU I got.

All of a sudden while playing WoW, wow crashed. I click reopen on the crash report and BAM! BSOD. I was like, meh and shrugged it off. That's nothing compared to my old PC. Well that's when it got interesting. After that point, it would not even get a chance to boot to windows before it BSOD. It doesn't even look for a windows install before BSOD or a different type of BSOD with error codes and file names, i.e. 0xc0000225, 221, 098, 225 and more. these all seem to point to different items in the PC which makes me think it's random. I initially suspected the PSU, but I tested it with my multimeter and voltages seem fine. Even then I was still weary of the PSU, so I plugged it into my gf's PC and same exact issue. BSOD before anything can even happen, or RIGHT after the logo screen disappears it's already BSOD. Sometimes I might see the windows logo, then BSOD.

Troubleshooting:
used 1 stick of ram, 3 different sticks all same issue (2 different brands)
Plugged into secondary PC to test PSU - SAME error on new PSU
Removed 1 m.2 drive at a time then both. Same error regardless
Took Mobo out of case and set on egg crate to test - same issue
Continued testing ram sticks 2 at a time, and 1 at a time slot by slot - same issue
Removed m.2 drives, inserted 2 USB windows boot drives, same issue, bsod right after windows logo or before even getting to the windows logo
Unplugged all extras like front USB 2.0 and 3.0, audio, etc
Removed Discreet GPU and used onboard video - same issue
Regooped the CPU since I used generic before, and now I have arctic silver and to check the CPU (nothing seemed off)
Reseated HSF (obvi?)

Now it's beeping 3x twice when it attempts to boot after doing all the troubleshooting. Now it's more annoying. My theory is the board died somehow via corrupting the bios. I think this because the board seems to be powering oddly, the lights fade on slowly then are fine. When in the BIOS, sometimes it will have a mixture of English and Chinese(not sure if Chinese, but similar looking from my perspective), and then it showed the BIOS version as f8, when it is F9, then it reverted later and booted as F9 again. The 3 beeps according to Gigabytes poorly done beep codes indicates 64k memory error or something. I am not sure if this is RAM or CMOS it's referring to, but to me it sounds like the board took a crap and can't recover. I was going to try to get into BIOS once more and do a BIOS update in case it could knock it free from it's corruption, but now it doesn't appear to want to boot. I took the HSF off again in case I seated the CPU wrong, but it seems to be fine. So now idk why it's beeping 3x and beyond that I don't know how to fix the insta BSOD other than RMA the board.

Anyone got any suggestions?

p.s. At one point there was a black screen of death too indicating an issue with my BCD, which some of the previous error referenced the BCD also, but I can't get anywhere to try and fix it. All the "repair" options loop, then restart the PC.

I may have missed some troubleshooting steps, it's been a long day of tinkering with this damn thing.

Also:
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro Wifi
2x8gb Corsair LPX vengeance 3600mhz (XMP profile)
Core i5 9600k (30-32 idle)
Deepcool Gammax 400 HSF with Arctic silver 5
Samsung Evo 960 500gb m.2
Samsung Evo 970 250gb m.2 (boot drive)
Corsair CX750M PSU (all voltage on point)
EVGA 1070 FTW GTX GPU (Tested with and without it installed)

 

[RememberThe5th]

Voltages might be on point but multimeter cannot update very fast as every psu has oscilation.

 

[joshuaqueen]

Voltages might be on point but multimeter cannot update very fast as every psu has oscilation.

That is fine, but I tested it on another guaranteed working PSU and I run into the same issue. I was thinking it was PSU myself, but after plugging the board into another working PSU (Powers my gf working PC), I am not so sure. It did seem to be fluctuation quickly when testing voltages, but I wasn't sure if this was normal or a sign of damage. It's a good multimeter, so it may be able to detect the osc too but not sure. It's not a $25 get 'er done real quick meter. It's a Fluke model that has a lot of functionality. Anyways, I am still suspecting the mobo. Not sure how other components would revert the bios version, then show the proper one again multiple times, and the mixed languages on certain boots made me blame the board too.